by Lee Goldberg
“Working on a new plot twist for our border operation,” Cannon said.
“I’ve already got one for you,” Morzeny said. “And it could ruin everything.”
Morzeny told Cannon about the call Magar Orlov received from the bellman at the hotel in Porto. Ian Ludlow, an American thriller author, had discovered that the San Diego tourists who appeared to have died in a selfie accident were actually murdered.
“Ludlow even has a photo of Orlov,” Morzeny said. “He showed it to the desk clerk at the hotel.”
Cannon was shocked, but he was also an actor who could improvise on the spot. He shrugged off the concern. “It’s an unwelcome complication, but it doesn’t mean that Ludlow will tumble onto our entire plot.”
But Ludlow was a writer, and Cannon believed that made him far more likely than a trained intelligence operative to discover their scheme. That was because Cannon knew writers instinctively tried to generate plots from events around them as a means of survival, the way a pigeon is always searching for food, pecking at everything in sight. A spy lacked the imagination or the drive for that kind of free-association creativity.
Cannon knew he should be worried and upset by this startling development, but instead he found it exciting. Now there was someone out there opposing him, someone who saw the world the same way he did. A doppelgänger. It somehow made the whole operation electrifying in a way that it hadn’t been before.
What he was feeling must have shown on his face, because Morzeny said: “Why the fuck are you smiling?”
It always amused Cannon when foreigners used American profanity. The swear words always seemed too big to fit in their mouths and were spit out rather than spoken, like a glob of tough meat they couldn’t chew and didn’t dare try to swallow.
“Because I always appreciate a twist I never saw coming,” Cannon said. “And in my own story no less.”
“You don’t seem to realize how serious this is,” Morzeny said. “How did he get on to us so fast? Is he a spy? Does this mean that US intelligence already knows what we are doing?”
Cannon held up a hand in a halting gesture. “Calm down. Ludlow isn’t a spy. There’s a simple explanation for this.”
“Really? Because I don’t see it.” Morzeny glanced at Viktor. “Do you?”
Viktor wisely didn’t answer.
Cannon sighed. “Ludlow is a novelist who started in television, where the hacks churn out twenty-two episodes a season. They are so desperate for stories to feed the machine that they steal ideas from the news for inspiration. They use the term ‘ripped from the headlines’ for their stories because it sounds a lot better than ‘plagiarized from the New York Times because we have no imagination.’ Now Ludlow is obviously doing the same thing for his books.”
Morzeny’s smirk told Cannon that he wasn’t buying it, though it was what Cannon honestly believed was at work here. “How can you possibly know that?”
“First off, because I did my time in television, doing guest shots on shows written by guys just like Ian Ludlow. I know how the game is played. But you don’t need to have my Hollywood experience to know that I’m right. The proof is right in front of you,” Cannon said. “All you have to do is look at the timing. Ludlow went to Porto the same day the news broke about the two Americans getting killed taking a selfie. That tells me he was a desperate novelist staring at a blank screen who saw a hook for his next story and used it as an excuse for a trip to Portugal, probably at his publisher’s expense.”
“But you’re forgetting something,” Morzeny said. “Ludlow is the same guy who got Wang Mei to defect from China. That sounds like the work of a spy to me, not some hack novelist.”
“Because you don’t know any writers besides me. Your man Edney got it right when Ludlow and Wang Mei were guests on his show. He said that Mei was a rich, spoiled actress in deep legal and financial trouble in China who seduced a horny, visiting American writer into helping her escape prosecution. Ludlow was a dupe. The fact that it’s Ludlow who stumbled onto the murder in Porto is a fluke, but an understandable one.”
“Then how did he get Orlov’s picture?”
“I don’t know. The obvious answer is that your agent was sloppy and left a trail even an amateur could follow,” Cannon said. “But lucky for us, Ludlow is a novelist, not an investigative reporter. He makes stuff up for a living. Our operation isn’t in any immediate danger.”
“It will be if he knows Gustavo Reynoso was framed.”
“He’d need the dead woman’s photos for that, and that’s assuming she actually took a picture that shows Reynoso and Orlov together,” Cannon said. “But Ludlow won’t see her pictures because her phone was destroyed in Porto.”
“Did you erase her photos in the cloud?” Viktor asked Morzeny, startling both men, who’d forgotten he was there.
The bewildered expression on Morzeny’s face told Cannon and Viktor that the answer was no, the cloud backup wasn’t hacked and deleted. But Morzeny was quick with an explanation.
“Of course not. Her death was accidental. There was no reason to think that anybody would go looking through her archived photos in the cloud. And besides, if anybody did access her archive for some reason, and discovered that some photos were deleted after her fatal death, that would have raised immediate, unwanted suspicion. We took a calculated risk that it was better not to touch her cloud archive.”
Cannon was sure the truth was that it never occurred to Morzeny to hack her cloud backup, but his improvised excuse was impressive and actually made a lot of sense. The skillful ass-covering demonstrated to Cannon how Morzeny had risen so far within the dark realm of Soviet politics.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cannon said, letting Morzeny off the hook. “Ludlow is a novelist. He doesn’t have the resources to hack her cloud account anyway, so it’s a nonissue. Where is Ludlow now?”
“He and his assistant are on their way to the airport for a flight back to Los Angeles,” Morzeny said. “They are flying from Porto to Lisbon, Lisbon to New York, and finally New York to Los Angeles. With layovers between flights, they will be in transit for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“Perfect,” Cannon said. “That gives us plenty of time to deal with the problem. I don’t see any reason to rewrite our script. The operation in Texas can continue on schedule tonight. But you should send a cleaning crew to Porto now.”
“That’s already in motion. This isn’t my first rodeo,” Morzeny said and it made Cannon cringe. He hated clichés, but even more so when they were repeated by foreigners who thought they were being clever. “What do we do about Ludlow and his assistant?”
Cannon typed his answer on the keyboard and an instant later the president of the United States spoke for him in his distinctive, and unmistakably crass, voice as if he’d been listening to their conversation on a speakerphone all along.
“Kill them both and make it look like an accident,” the president said. “But don’t fuck it up this time.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Almada Regent Hotel. Porto, Portugal. November 13. 5:37 p.m. Western European Time.
The man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, long overcoat, and black leather gloves dragged a large roller bag behind him as he crossed the empty lobby and approached the front desk, where Beatriz and Duda were waiting to greet him with their customer service smiles. His head was slightly lowered, and shadowed by his hat, so it was hard for either Beatriz or Duda to get a good look at his face, not that the man was worried about being recognized or remembered by them. It was force of habit to keep his face obscured from security cameras.
“I’d like to check in,” the man said in Spanish.
Beatriz answered in Spanish. “Do you have a reservation?”
“That depends,” he said. “Are you Beatriz and is he Duda?”
He gestured first to her, then to the bellman.
She smiled and touched her engraved plastic name tag. “Yes, we are, just like it says on our name tags.”
“Do you
ever wear another person’s name tag or one with a false name?”
Duda shared a bemused look with Beatriz. “Why would we do that?”
The man shrugged. “To maintain your anonymity or as a joke.”
“We’d be fired if we ever did that,” Beatriz said.
“How would the boss know?” the man asked.
Beatriz pointed to the security cameras on the walls. “The cameras would give us away if one of the guests didn’t first.”
“Then I have no reservations about this.” The man reached into his jacket, took out a gun equipped with a long suppressor, and shot Duda between the eyes, then Beatriz in her mouth, which was wide open, preparing for a scream that never came. Their bodies dropped to the floor like clothes that had slipped off their hangers.
The assassin bent down and unzipped his suitcase, removed the gasoline can that was inside, unscrewed the lid, and began pouring out its contents on the floor as he stepped behind the counter and into the back office, where the DVR and security monitors were.
The hackers in the Kitchen would be wiping clean the hotel’s guest records and their online archive of security footage, but he splashed gasoline over the DVR and the computers just to be on the safe side and continued pouring as he walked back to his suitcase. None of this cleanup would have been necessary, he thought, if the Kitchen had sent him to handle the American tourists rather than having Orlov follow them from the United States. But what do caterers and bureaucrats know about spy craft?
An elderly couple emerged from the elevator. The assassin reflexively shot them both as they stepped out and continued his work, not bothering to see if they were dead because it didn’t matter.
He snatched a souvenir matchbook from a dish full of them on the counter, packed the gasoline can back in the roller bag, and dragged it with him to the front door.
The assassin took one more look back, just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, then struck a match, lit the matchbook with it, and tossed the burning matches into the gasoline on the floor.
The gasoline ignited instantly with an audible whoosh, flames washing over the entire front desk area. As he stepped out onto the street, his back to the hotel, the fire alarms went off and the sprinklers sprang on, but the water only spread the gasoline-fed inferno further through the lobby, setting the furniture and wood paneling ablaze.
He checked his watch while he strolled toward the Praça da Liberdade, the sound of alarms and sirens and screams behind him, and decided he had time to treat himself to a Francesinha and a glass of port before his flight back to Madrid.
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. November 13. 10:11 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time.
Ian was seated beside Margo in first class on the second stage of their journey home, a flight from Lisbon to JFK airport in New York, arriving at 8:00 p.m., which would give them a two-hour layover before their flight to Los Angeles.
Shortly after takeoff, Margo put on her noise-canceling headphones and began listening to music.
Ian watched the satellite news on the in-flight entertainment system to see if there were any new developments in the Gustavo Reynoso killings, but all he saw was a report about a buildup in the number of troops participating in Russia’s annual military exercises on its borders with Belarus and Georgia. Some pundits were worried that it was a cover for a possible invasion by Soviet leaders emboldened by the lack of meaningful international opposition to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Ian turned off the TV, took out a legal pad and a pen, and began to list the things he knew about the San Diego couple’s murder, and the story about Reynoso’s killings, in chronological order to see if a potential plot would emerge that tied the events together into something more. He wrote down the first item:
Illegal immigrant and convicted rapist Gustavo Reynoso meets Waldo in San Diego. Waldo is driving the Escalade, presumably with the bodies inside. Briana Clemens captures them in a selfie. Someone else is watching. Who? Why?
Ian tapped Margo on the shoulder to get her attention.
She opened her eyes and took off her headphones. “What?”
“Can you ask your friends in Langley to look at the metadata on the picture Briana Clemens took of Waldo and Reynoso talking and get the time it was taken? Then can you ask your friends to find out what time Gustavo Reynoso was stopped by the cops? I’d like to know how close the two events were. Oh, and can you also have them get us detailed information on the two women who were killed?”
“Would you like me to do it now?”
“Can you?”
She gave him a look. “No, I can’t. We’re on an airplane over the Atlantic.”
“We have Wi-Fi,” Ian said.
“The only thing less secure than airplane Wi-Fi is running naked through Compton holding all of your money, jewelry, and credit cards in a baggie. You, of all people, should know that.”
“I thought you might have a device from Q Branch that gives you added protection or encryption.”
“Of course I do. I just forgot to pack it, along with my tampon flamethrower,” she said. “Make me a list of what you need and I’ll do it as soon as we get back.”
She put her headphones back on and Ian went back to his list. He added the two questions he’d asked Margo to item #1 and then continued.
Gustavo Reynoso is sitting alone in the parked Escalade with the two dead women and a gun from the Vibora/ATF sting when he’s stopped by the police. Why was Gustavo parked there? Where was Waldo? Who killed the women? Who were the women?
Gustavo flees and is killed by a car in a hit-and-run. That was convenient. Was it an accident—or was he run down intentionally? If so, by whom? Was it whoever was watching before? And what were they doing there? Did they follow Gustavo or were they already in place? Do the police have any information on the hit-and-run driver?
Dwight Edney reveals Gustavo snuck into the country before, is a convicted rapist, and used a gun from the Guns & Roses sting. Media goes crazy and the Guns & Roses scandal is resurrected. The president, Homeland Security, and ICE are trashed for ineptitude and weak border enforcement. Fingers are pointed at Arturo Giron and his Vibora cartel. Is this just noise or is it part of why Gustavo was set up?
Waldo follows Clemens and Rolfe to Porto and kills them. Who is Waldo and who sent him? Did Waldo kill the women in San Diego, too? Was he protecting himself or someone else by killing Clemens and Rolfe? Is Waldo in charge or working for someone else?
The media, led by Dwight Edney, say Gustavo is just the beginning of the problem at the border. Justice Dept. announces its intention to prosecute the ATF agents involved in the G&R sting years ago.
Drug mules are killed in Texas carrying drugs and Guns & Roses weapons. Edney and Cuomo and the rest of the media, still amped up by the killings in San Diego, tie the two events together . . . but are they actually related? If so, how? Or is this all smoke, a big distraction? Is this really all about one or both of the dead women?
Bottom line: Four people are dead. Rolfe and Clemens were killed to cover up the murders of the women in San Diego . . . but why were the women killed? Who is Waldo? Who is he working for? How many people are involved in this conspiracy and what is their endgame?
Ian stared at his list, added more notes and questions and doodles in the margins, but it wasn’t long before it was all just a jumble. He needed to clear his mind, so he set the notepad aside, fired up the airline’s entertainment system, and found another Bond movie to watch.
He chose The Spy Who Loved Me, his favorite 007 flick from the lighthearted, quippy Roger Moore era. It was basically a remake of You Only Live Twice. This time a megalomaniac bad guy, hiding in a secret base underwater, uses a supertanker to gobble up submarines equipped with nuclear warheads from the British and the Soviets. His evil plan is to obliterate New York and Moscow with missiles fired from the two submarines, sparking a nuclear war between the superpowers that will destroy the surface of the planet, all so he can rule a new, undersea ci
vilization. As the action unfolds, Bond skis off a cliff with a Union Jack parachute hidden in his pack, drives a sports car that turns into a missile-firing submarine, and battles Jaws, a seven-foot-tall assassin with serrated steel teeth.
The movie was exactly what Ian needed, an action-packed spy story that was far removed from reality and too ridiculous to ever come true. When it was over, his mind was clear and he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Eli Tanner’s Ranch. Dunn, Texas. November 14. 2:22 a.m. Central Standard Time.
Beth Wheeler and Magar Orlov peeled out of the night unnoticed behind the four-man patrol that was searching for illegals. The militia men were expecting any threats to come from the Mexican border somewhere in front of them, not from the darkness of Texas behind their backs.
The two Russian spies were each armed with an AK-47 and a Glock equipped with a suppressor and were dressed entirely in black, from the balaclavas that covered their faces and the night-vision goggles over their eyes, to the Kevlar vests and utility belts that held their extra ammo, hand grenades, and knives, down to their boots.
Beth shot two of the men in the back with her Glock, and Magar shot the two others. They were virtually silent kills. The spies wordlessly climbed into the patrol’s Jeep and Beth drove them toward Tanner’s compound, which was comprised of the ranch house, stables, barns, water tank, equipment shed, bunkhouse, and other structures.
When they were about a hundred yards away from the compound, another militia Jeep came bouncing across the desert toward them.
Magar took careful aim as they closed in on the oncoming vehicle and fired three shots at it in rapid succession with his silenced Glock. Two shots went into the other Jeep’s windshield and the third blew out the front right tire.
The other Jeep spun, flipped over, and rolled into the desert brush, landing upside down. Beth slowed to a stop beside the smoking, crumpled vehicle and could hear moans of agony from inside.
